The battery consisted of forty double plates, thus arranged: Each trough, excepting the end ones, was separately connected with a glassful of mercury by polished copper wire, and each pair of glasses was connected by very fine polished iron wire.
The effects took place at the moment of contact at all the wires, so that there could have been no neutral point.
For the last time, after innumerable failures, he returned to the decomposition of nitrogen.
On August 13 ‘experiment very cautiously made of the action of potassium on nitrogene. Light green when mercury is employed, red when potassium.’
On October 23 the Laboratory Book says:
‘A series of experiments to attempt to decompose hydrofluoric acid, and to ascertain the constitution of the fluoric combinations.
‘1. To obtain pure hydrofluoric acid.
‘2. To obtain silicofluoric acid gas, and to decompose it by potassium and by potash, and to ascertain the quantity of fluate of lime they will give.
‘3. To make pure prussic acid.